Social media is a miraculous invention: a way to stay in touch with friends and family, to share thoughts and pictures and videos and common interests, at any moment with perfect convenience, literally with the push of a button (actually, even the force of pushing a button is not actually required, it's just touching a piece of glass!).
It is an electronic extension of ancient modes of human communication: instead of sharing stories and starting conversations around a campfire with a group of fellow hunter-gatherers or villagers, we have an electronic campfire, which allows 24/7 contact with almost everyone in the whole world.
Human interaction and communication is a need, and our brains are designed to be very sensitive to social stimuli.
There are many benefits of using social media, but it is in my opinion very harmful, both on an individual level and as a national or worldwide community.
Social media companies of course want you to spend more time on their apps. The algorithms are designed to feed you information that would interest you more, and keep you looking for longer. But this isn't necessarily good or healthy! It's the same mechanism that feeds addiction or any unhealthy habit. It's like candy for the brain. The algorithms are not designed to give balanced information, or to help people avoid getting sucked into rabbit holes of misinformation, or to stay healthy, or to foster harmony in communities, they are simply designed to optimize time spent on the apps.
So people are spending huge amounts of time surfing on social media or other scrolling information sites. "Doomscrolling" is a very common activity. For children, there are clear psychological harms--Jonathan Haidt's latest book "The Anxious Generation" is a good place to start reviewing the data on this. Especially for children, the social comparison that is fed by social media is almost guaranteed to at once absorb attention, but also make people feel bad about themselves. This could result in an increased rate in mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders.
And there are secondary costs, as Haidt has also shown: every hour spent on an app means one less hour doing some other healthy or meaningful human activity, such as playing outside, going for a walk, doing a hobby, studying, conversing with friends in person, or reading a book. App use fosters both psychological harm and damage to physical health as well, by reducing the amount of exercise we're getting, sometimes interfering with sleep (people are often up late at night looking at their phones; aside from the psychological component driving this, the bright light from the screens further interferes with normal sleep).
I spent a few years using Twitter. I am thankful that I stopped using it by the time it had changed names a few years ago. There were many positives of Twitter for me, professionally: it was a way to stay informed about the ideas and research of numerous experts in various fields of interest, and to hear their ideas instantaneously, rather than waiting for journal articles to come out (sometimes years later). At times one could interact directly with the experts. And one could add on other peripheral or hobby interests, and just feel better informed every day. During the pandemic I felt Twitter was a good way both to follow news of critical matters daily, but also to contribute a public message as a professional.
But I ended up spending more and more time on Twitter. Even during a hike outside, I would find myself pulling out my phone and checking. Hours were spent on the app that could have been spent reading a book or a journal or a newspaper, or doing some fun activity. And as I discovered over time, many of the interactions on Twitter were frustrating -- often you couldn't really have a conversation with people. It was rare for an expert to actually interact with you. The app created an illusion of connectivity, while very little was actually there. The one advantage it did have was convenience, and efficiency in terms of cultivating a community of like-minded peers. Such a community can sometimes be useful, but at worst this feeds the worst tendencies in society, of polarization and division.
From a psychiatric point of view, I believe it is important to assess internet and social media use. It should be an essential component of any psychiatric history.
Consideration should always be given to weaning from social media, to try a few months entirely without it. You may experience "withdrawal" from it, but after this passes you may feel more free. If you fear that you'll become less informed, remind yourself that you can just read magazines or newspapers once a week, or once a month, and most likely remain as informed, or even more, compared to doomscrolling.
On a societal level, I understand that one of the principles at play here is freedom of speech. If governments were to regulate social media companies this would be seen as interfering with freedoms. But if we consider that social media and many other internet sites are analogous to addictive products, such as cigarettes or alcohol, maybe we could increase the amount of regulation about how these products are marketed or accessed, especially to children.
One of Haidt's ideas is to insist that children in school should not be allowed to have their phones during school hours. I think this is very good idea. Of course, modern education often makes use of electronic media, but this could be provided in schools using other devices that would not allow kids to be surfing social media during their classroom hours.
This idea could be extended into adult life, to invite people to set their phones aside much more often.
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